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Everything posted by DAVIDH

I think as others have said, the whole Brexit uncertainty is weighing on people's minds - perhaps distracting them. I have a rough and ready method of comparing how many boats remain available compared to last year over Easter, Spring Bank, the school holidays and October half term. Twice a month I monitor how many boats are still available. The latest set of set of figures indicate that bookings are down 10% on last year at this time but that the rate of booking has slowed by half in the last 2 weeks.

Think you may be better served by calling (or emailing) Richardsons direct as they are sure to have the measurements you need. Commodore's are not cheap so I am sure they will do their best to service your enquiry.

Brister was our favourite yard and it was a blow when Mike Brister told us it was their last year of hire. We haad Yare Sunrise - the one in the brochure pages, followed by Yare Twilight a couple of times before taking the newer version of Yare Sunlight (a Haines 28 mould?) in it's first season. It was the bees knees with a cocktail cabinet, oak finish kitchen cabinets and smoked glass windows. When they finished hiring, we followed the boats to Summercraft. David Brister is still with them as an engineer I believe. The images below are the boats with Summercraft - the oldest I have now - from 2007.

More brochure pages, this time from 1987. I particularly liked the Blakes "painted" cover. Sorry, the Hoseasons cover is a little battered, (could even be a gravy stain). I have chosen pages mostly of boatyards which no longer exist, but were "stand-out" yards at their peak.
Interesting that Rhapsody in the first image below is hired by Classic Cruisers in Thorpe, and that it look similar to High Fantasy from Highcraft in Thorpe, featured in the first of the Blakes brochure images below. Were they the same company. but using two boatyard names to sell through both Blakes and Hoseasons?

I know of Barnes Brinkcraft in Wroxham and Bridgecraft in Acle who will hire to solo sailors. In both cases you would need to ring the yards direct - not through Hoseasons. If nothing fits with them you could also try The Broads Boating Company, though I have no advance knowledge of their policy.
Humber Bridge from Bridgecraft and Royall Velvet 2, or 3, or Brinks Sonnet from Barnes Brinkcraft are smallish craft with bow thrusters. All front steering which I find useful for embarking/disemabarking as a solo sailor

Just watched this from BBC IPlayer (it's available for the next 4 weeks). If you have not seen it yet, this colour newsreel style film using actual movies from the First World War is an education. From the encouragement and bravado of joining up to fight, through the devil's cauldron conditions endured in the battlefields, the meaningless loss of life through to bewilderment as to what it was all for, this is a very sobering film. The participants endured so much and came back to be met with high unemployment and in some cases being discriminated against for work "Ex-servicement need not apply". I have seen Schindlers List, and at the end of the film nobody said a word as they were leaving the cinema such was the shock. They Shall Not Grow Old has the same effect. See it if you can. It disappeared for a few months from IPlayer so it's not always available.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0brzkzx

Yes, there are a number of dual steer craft in the brochures above which are both front and rear steer. i was actually referring to Wishing Waters as one of the first which had in effect, a flying bridge. Ripplecraft at Somerleyton had another couple of boats of similar style which had flying bridges. Dazzling Waters and Calm Waters. All are similar styles but different lengths. It stuck me that Ripplecraft really were designing boats ahead of their time as today it's the hire boats with flying bridges which are the most sought after.

More images of pages from Hoseasons and Blakes brochures for those who like to see them - this time 1975 and 1976.
Blakes brochure - notice Petit Barsac which at 19ft length must havebeen the shortest boat for hire on the Broads - unless you know different? Sanderling at the bottom was the first boat we hired in 1973, which in March cost us £29.
Wishing Waters from Ripplecraft in Somerleyton had the distinction of being dual steer, incorporating a sort of flying bridge. Visionary thinking?
Hoseasons brochures. We hired Calypso King in it's first season.
Take a look at the Oulton Broad houseboats for hire - all gone now.

To be fair to Herbert Woods, the discounts are just for starts in the month of March. Offer Details Could it just be that the 14 boats offered have now completed their annual service and are now back in the water, perhaps ahead of schedule and therefore suitable to discount?
Insurers and energy companies will often charge you extra for being loyal to them. Most people will have experienced that you can buy the same policy/power cheaper as a new customer if you compare prices.
Yield management is employed across the travel industry now. Flight prices will generally be cheapest around launch dates but can "bobble around" right up to departure due to sophisticated computer algorithms which compare yield to expected levels and adjust the prices accordingly. You can still end up sitting next to someone who booked later than you but is paying less than you did. The aim is to achieve a specified load factor. Holiday companies have for a long time, loaded the peak month prices to subsidise the off-peak dates. The price you pay for a week in early May (away from bank holidays) is not a true reflection of the cost to the operator who will use premium date revenues to keep the off-peak dates "operational". This way they can keep staff on season long and iron out the expenses over the year to some extent.
Rail fares changed because the operators were finding that their trains were full mornings and evenings but not so at other times. SO they needed to come up with a system where they offered off peak fares to people who would not be taking up seats already paid for in full by commuters and business people. That's where the advance part came in, so they could allocate a particular service to you, which was perhaps not selling well. Again it is the computerisation of the yield management which has enabled this. On top of this, there will always be a number of no shows/cancellations which are not refundable and can be resold, again built into the yield managament.
I think we are likely to see more of this behaviour over time. It's a "wild west" out there but the benefit is that there are lower prices out there if you can seek them out.

There was definitely a yard at Stokesby - not sure which though. I remember reading on NBF that the place fell into disrepair over a number of years. The boats just sat there and literally sank! The story was that the operation was a husband and wife team and as I remember it, the husband found out that the wife had been playing away and through either just loss of interest in the business or perhaps a deliberate act to run down the value of the business in the event that a divorce settlement would follow. (Just as I remember it - no first hand knowledge)

For those who enjoy looking at the older brochures, here are a few pages from the 1976 Broads Holiday brochure. I remember there were quite a few "odd looking" boats around at that time. Two here I think are a little "ungainly" are Cygnet, a 2 berth cruiser and Crystal Arrow (or Iona Line). Compare them to the super modern looking Fen Breeze.

I have looked at both Hoseasons and Blakes for 1975 but no boat called Capri. Next I looked for a blue hulled boat starting from Loddon but apart from the Aston Boats which were fibreglass, there were none. I have a copy of the 1976 Broads Holidays brochure and looked through that but no Capri. The only one I can find starting from Loddon with a blue hull (cannot tell if wood/steel/fibreglass) is the one shown below.